Khyber (Ben 10 Series)
Khyber is one of the three main antagonists for the first two season arcs in Ben 10: Omniverse, along with Malware and Dr. Psychobos, and a supporting antagonist in subsequent seasons. He was hired by Dr. Psychobos to obtain DNA samples of predatory aliens for the Nemetrix. He later teams up with Albedo and helps him in his plans for revenge. He is allegedly the greatest huntsman in the galaxy, who has hunted down both sapient and non-sapient beings. Appearance Khyber has a black suit covering his upper body with a red stripe in the middle and grey pants. He has grey gloves and a grey belt, as well as black boots with grey soles. He wears bones as ornamentation over his clothes, the broken up skeletal remains of the creatures he has hunted, described as "some of the most vicious quarry in the universe", which consists of: * A ribcage on his chest. * A tail bone on his right shoulder and a skull of a horned animal on his left shoulder. * Ribs covering the back of his black suit and boots. * Claws on his shoes. The only part of Khyber's body that is exposed is his face, which is turquoise with a large lower jaw. His jaw has teeth fused with his lips, similar to Detrovites. He has dark red sunken eyes. He also has gills under his cheeks, which he used for whistling in order to summon Zed/his Panuncian pet when under his command. Personality Khyber has a calm and serious personality. Unlike most villains Ben as his allies have encountered, Khyber cares not for posturing; he doesn't monologue about his plans nor does he treat his opponents/targets as powerless before him. Rather, he is straight to business with a no-nonsense attitude. He does however take great pride in his status as a hunter, often commenting on it when looked down by others, to which he can get distracted when reaffirming his status. He is shown to be a careful and methodical planner, as he spent the last 5 years studying Ben so he can capture him. He is also very intelligent, as he knows the weaknesses of various species, notably proper usage of pressure points strikes. While not abusive to his pets, even referring to Zed as "old friend", he is not for pampering. To which, he has no qualms about leaving them behind if they do not live up to his high standards of efficiency and will only feed them just enough to keep up their strength and maintain their loyalty. Khyber claims that too much food would dull their hunting instinct. Ironically for his high hunting prowess, Khyber does not pay attention to small but noteworthy traits of his pets, including gender, to which Kevin called him a jerk for not realizing Zed is a girl. After he accidentally used the Nemetrix on himself, he started to mix up words without noticing it but he didn't show to have any other type of brain damage. History Background Khyber was one of the handful who have escaped from his extremely hostile home planet, Sangerosia. It is unknown whether he was truly ever one of the indentured workers or secretly one of the masterminds behind the whole operation. Five years prior to Omniverse Khyber was hired by Malware and Dr. Psychobos to get Ben's Omnitrix so that they could reverse engineer it to build a device of "superior" quality. They paid him with their device based on the Omnitrix, the Nemetrix. Khyber spent an amount of time afterwards collecting the DNA of the most fierce and savage of the universe's predators and added their DNA to the Nemetrix. Khyber also collected a number of "volunteers" from the Null Void, such as Phil Billings, to test out the Nemetrix. Nearly all the tests failed miserably, learning that only a non-sapient creature could operate the Nemetrix without suffering from severe side effects since "higher functioning" creatures can't handle the savage nature of the predators, ultimately attaching it to his dog, an Anubian Baskurr. Originally, he was later tasked to obtain DNA samples from Ben's Omnitrix to complete the Nemetrix. Omniverse Khyber first appeared in The More Things Change: Part 1, where he spotted Ben investigating the wreckage of Pakmar's destroyed "toilet store" and sent his dog to attack Ben as Crabdozer. Once Crabdozer had Spidermonkey pinned down, Khyber recalls her, observing that Ben was "worthy prey". In The More Things Change: Part 2, Khyber sent his dog after Ben again but this time as Buglizard. When Rook saved Ben, Khyber called Buglizard back until he could get Ben alone. Khyber got his chance to attack Ben when he was alone during his fight against Psyphon, sending Buglizard after him again but this time, Ben was able to defeat Buglizard as Shocksquatch. Later back at his ship, Khyber decided that Ben is more resourceful and skillful than he thought. Later, Khyber stealthily broke into Plumber HQ to steal information on his employer Malware as well as the Helix, watching a video depicting the events of Trouble Helix, the first fight between Ben and Malware. Once the video was over, Khyber copied all files relating to the Helix, as well as files on Ben and Malware and left. During the events of It Was Them, Khyber sent his pet after Ben first at Burger Shack as Slamworm, whom Ben was able to defeat as Diamondhead. Later Khyber sent his pet after Ben a second time at Dr. Animo's ant hill, where he had nearly defeated Crashhopper as Mucilator before Rook saved Ben. Ben defeated Mucilator by freeing Animo's Mutant Ants from his control and letting them attack Mucilator, forcing her to flee. Khyber tells his pet to be patient, as next time, Animo won't be getting in their way. In Of Predators and Prey: Part 1, Khyber spotted Rook and Ben apparently breaking off their partnership and takes the opportunity to attack Ben in person with Zed, successfully capturing Ben after a grueling battle between the two Omnitrix users. In Of Predators and Prey: Part 2, Khyber brought Ben to his ship and explained to him his history with his old nemesis, Malware. Afterwards, he and Rath got into a short fight in which Khyber easily won using a simple nerve pinch. However, Rook arrived and saved Ben, revealing that their earlier break up was part of an elaborate ruse to lure Khyber and Zed out of hiding. While Ben and Zed got into a fight, Rook fought Khyber, trying to get his hands on Khyber's whistle that he used to command Zed. After learning that Khyber is the whistle, Rook simply muzzled him, allowing Ben to defeat Tyrannopede as Grey Matter using the same neural pinch Khyber used on him and rescued Rook from the crashing ship as Big Chill. Though Khyber and Zed survived the crash, they were soon found by Malware and Dr. Psychobos. In Outbreak, Khyber tried to keep Zed under control while the Nemetrix was malfunctioning but failed, with Zed continuing to randomly change form. According to Dr. Psychobos, the needed component to stabilize the Nemetrix was in the Omnitrix itself. Malware and Khyber argued over who would get the component, but Dr. Psychobos insisted that he did it himself. In Malefactor, Khyber and Zed attacked Ben and Rook at the "Olde Bellwood Days" festival in order to keep them from discovering that Malware was stealing data files from the Plumber database from Rook's Proto-TRUK, until Ben discovered that it was a distraction at which point Khyber directed them towards Rook's truck for his own reasons before he and Zed retreated. In Showdown: Part 1, Khyber is seen with Dr. Psychobos, who plans to take down Azmuth and the entire Galvan race using their own predator: Omnivoracious. He and Dr. Psychobos use Zed to transform into an Omnivoracious and they corner Azmuth. Azmuth quickly transports Ben and Rook to his side and Khyber quickly wants to fight Ben. Khyber orders Zed to attack Ben, but Dr. Psychobos uses his electrical powers to force Khyber to whistle, causing Zed to transform back into an Omnivoracious to attack Azmuth. Once Azmuth creates a flute that sounds exactly like Khyber's whistle, Khyber turns on Dr. Psychobos, allowing Azmuth to turn Omnivoracious into Dr. Psychobos' own natural predator: Vicetopus. Vicetopus traps Dr. Psychobos, allowing Ben, Rook, and Azmuth to take him away. Smoke then engulfs the area and the Nemetrix is suddenly gone from Zed's collar. It is revealed that Khyber has made off with the Nemetrix and abandoned Zed. In The Ultimate Heist, Khyber returns and forms an alliance with Albedo. While Ben was on mess duty, he broke into Plumber's HQ and, after a few cosmetic changes to Ben, switched him with Albedo. Later on after Albedo completed the new Ultimatrix, Khyber rescued him after his defeat by Argit. In A Fistful of Brains, after Albedo captured Ben, Albedo dropped him in Khyber's hunting preserve, where he introduced his newest pet, a Panuncian. In For a Few Brains More, Ben and his friends were able to escape his HQ, causing it to self-destruct. After chasing them to Earth, he and his Panuncian fought Ben, Rook, Gwen and Kevin, but he was ultimately defeated and revealed that he had a fear of Nemuinas when Ben transformed into Pesky Dust. After putting Khyber to sleep and gaining information from his dreams, he and his pet were left for the Plumbers to pick up, but they escaped before the Plumbers could reach them. In Stuck on You, he steals the Nemetrix from within Plumber Headquarters, leaving a mocking remark to Ben for the security cameras. He then travels to the Black Hole, and approaches Trumbipulor, revealing that he has a Slimebiote named Skurd on him. Khyber offers Skurd the opportunity to feed on the Nemetrix's DNA in exchange for a partnership, to which Skurd agrees. Khyber and Skurd find and attack Ben, Khyber using Skurd's powers to grant him the abilities of Crabdozer. Ben is teleported away before they can finish him. Ben later teleports onto Khyber's ship. Skurd, realizing that the Omnitrix has far more DNA to feed on then the Nemetrix, abandons Khyber for Ben, turning Khyber into Tyrannopede in the process. Giving in to the predator's savage nature, Khyber attacks Ben. Ben and Skurd work together to distract Khyber long enough for Rook to remove the Nemetrix, reverting him back to normal. Khyber is then taken into Plumber custody. Trivia * Khyber doesn't feed his pets because it would dull their hunting instincts. * In Khyber's first appearance, he whistles through his mouth to command Zed, but in all his other appearances, he whistles through the gill like slits on his lower jaw. * Khyber's dream in For a Few Brains More was his worst nightmare.2 * In the Transformers franchise, Vector Prime speculates that the Malgus cluster of universes may have interacted with the Ben 10 universe at some time, explaining why Khyber has trophies of Lockdown's Hook and Grimlock's Flame Sword in his ship. ** This information is canon to Transformers, but not to Ben 10. * Khyber resembles Deathwing's humanoid form, the fallen Dragon Aspect from World of Warcraft. * Khyber somewhat resembles the Yautja/Predator from the Predator franchise. ** Like the Predators, Khyber uses bone fragments from his victims as part of his armor or as weapons. ** Khyber has a trophy room like the Predators, with skulls and skeletons of his various preys. Also possesses a ship for space travel. ** Khyber once had an alien dog mascot which he used to hunt his prey, just like the hunt dogs used in the film Predators. * Khyber is very similar to Kraven the Hunter from Marvel Comics, in the way he treats Ben Tennyson as the greatest prey, much like Kraven does with Spider-Man. * The Hephaestan Neuro Grip is an allusion to Mr. Spock's Vulcan Nerve Pinch from Star Trek. ** The two terms are similar to each other. *** "Nerve" is a neurological component; *** "Pinch" is a kind of grip; *** Hephaestus, a Greek deity, is often considered the equivalent of Vulcan, a Roman deity. Category:Characters Category:Villens Category:Ben 10 Category:Ben 10 Characters Category:Ben 10 Villens